preface: I apparently am not adaptable to commercial espresso. When I have a good double it goes down easily but hits my stomach with pain. My anita (easily the best machine I have owned) easily produced an identical brew with unfortunately identical results, so after a year of non-use i sold it.

So I played a bit with my $15 old Goodwill Evo and did not have a problem. I was using year old frozen redbird espresso and it gave me a burnt taste, but not the upset of the ""good"" stuff, but reminded me of redbird of days past.

so i ordered 5# from Jeff and discovered a vast difference between the year old mason jar frozen beans, and fresh. full, chocolaty, soft, no matter how I sloppily brew it on my evo.

At the rate i am using beans at the moment these will last 3 months. I will definitely be encouraged to use them faster. But now I will be very alert to off tastes or missing tastes as months 2 and 3 come around.

The problem is the change comes so slowly that it's hard to notice. Until I did a 1 year change.

And this is on a very cheap machine. (never underestimate the power of a Macap!!!)

I have no idea why the ""good" stuff upsets my stomach and the cheap machine does not, but i like the buzzz so am not arguing!

But I thought this deserved an alert on bean freezing. The beans DO change while they're frozen.

I like to drink a double before I hit the gym, and I find it makes me burp quite a bit

about the freezer comment, I tried storing my beans in the freezer with the green bag it comes in, and I still can't help but taste a difference after 1 week which is partially why I'm avoiding a 5lb bag until I figure out a better storage method

I'm pulling 2 ounce shots from 18-18.5 grams in 25 seconds from first drip. i'm finding the first couple sips to be nice, but when I get to the bottom, it tastes somewhat sour? or acidic? anyhow, I don't like how the bottom layer tastes so I've been tossing that part into the sink

I'm trying foodsaver vacuum this time around. Measure into a pint jar and then pour into fs bag and seal. That amount of beans lasts less than a week.

I go through them too fast to order by a pound. Jeff's 5# prices are fantastic!!! And the beans are the best.

if your beans are fresh I don't know why you're getting scanky. Maybe vary the length of the initial flush from 0 to 5 seconds...

I had stopped all espresso for about a year, to test my stomach, but still had 3 pint jars in the freezer. They were good enough for me to tell that my evo wasn't going to hurt my stomach, but when I got the new ones, I realized just how bad the old ones were. The new beans give me a definite "drunk" feeling. YUM!

Okay, so I'm sitting here feeling almost drunk after my second latte, and wondering about life - of a Redbird bean.

They were roasted on Mon, shipped Mon eve, received Wed afternoon, and frozen immediately. I did notice that Jeff's spiffy new bags looked snug packed, and I am guessing in nitrogen, and had not expanded in shipping. A pint lasts me about 4 days, so I already had the next foodsaver bag out for a couple of days (my bad) but noticed it was still a vacuum. No air, or out-gas-ing of beans, yet SO fragrant when opened, and fantastic when brewed. So I am dwelling on Jeff's magic emporium whose beans don't out-gas and lose all their flavor.

my guess (and it IS a guess) is that the 1 year freezing kind of denatured the beans or otherwise mellowed whatever is upsetting your stomach in the fresh beans...it may be a product of bean roasting that your stomach doesn't agree with.

Are you drinking the Red Bird straight or in milk of any kind? For me, I had an experience last year where I suddenly became lactose intollerant for about 6 months. As a Cappa fan, it really sucked trying to use coconut or almond milk in my drinks. But suddenly I was "cured" one day. I couldn't eat cheese, milk, yogurt...anything without feeling like utter garbage for the rest of the day. But now I'm fine...it's weird.

I have had friends who don't drink espresso simply because it doesn't agree w/their stomach so I think there must be something to that.

I was milk intolerant for about a year - yeah, it's no fun finding an alternative. I always latte what I drink. - fuzzy milk!!! LOL (Silvia wand mod on this Evo)

The year in a mason jar certainly killed those beans. But i think it's the temp at which they're brewed that sets up the kill-the-stomach scenario. With the Gaggia, there's no way in hell that I'm going to get a constant pull or a certain temp pull. For some reason these off and sliding temps suit my stomach, though occasionally I do get one that reminds me of my stomach. This morning's was soft and smooth and a bit of chocolate and nice coffee. But if I'm out and about the machines are set to 199 or near that and my stomach can't take it. i did try with Anita and Eric's nose probe to raise the temp, but that machine is so darned flat on its profile that I failed to find a solution. Beautiful machine. If my stomach ever straightens itself out I'd get another Anita or an Andreja - I like the vertical boiler best of all the machines I've had.

I tried this batch frozen in foodsaver bags hoping that it will remove a lot of the air that's left in a Mason jar. But I'm using them a lot faster, so they'll taste better anyway. it's a fantastic bean/roast - extremely forgiving.

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